Some of the fellows in the Discord and me were feeling in a cruiser mood, so I decided to set up a design challenge catering to this.
The idea is to first and foremost have fun and then to produce some good looking drawings.

It is 1890 and there's several arms races and fleet buildup programs around the world! The Japanese are preparing for war with China, Argentina and Chile are trying to outmatch each others' navies, and the United States figured out that they, in fact, do need a blue-water navy! And they're all making Sir William George Armstrong very, very rich!
Can you design a marketable cruiser for the Elswick works? Can you persuade Chile from buying any more french ships? Or can you show the Japanese that you, in fact, are the world's leading shipbuilder and should buy, license and learn from you?

GUIDELINES:
1.- The time span for the challenge is from 1890 to 1900, your ship has to be completed by 1904 at the latest.

2.- There's two categories:
a. Protected Cruisers, protected by a turtleback deck and side coal bunkers, up to 8,000 tons normal displacement.
b. Armoured Cruisers, protected by an armour belt and deck, up to 13,000 tons normal displacement.

3.- No steam turbines or oil fired boilers.

If you want to deviate from the guidelines, do an unprotected or belted cruiser, or some "Cruiser Battleship" abomination, that's fine, but the idea is to keep it sane.
I consider things like aesthetics, national or shipyard characteristics and coherency with prevailing doctrine and available technology to be much more important than presumed performance, so please do submit small and/or flawed designs if you feel like it, like Pinto here at only 2,000 tons

In November 1894, a tender was submitted to Chile for a 4800 ton sheathed cruiser with a speed of 23-23.5 knots, with the same armament as BLANCO ENCALADA of if required 2 extra 6 in guns. In May 1895 the tender was accepted but the size of this ship had grown to 6000 tons. Two months later, the Chileans asked Armstrongs to consider the possibility of altering the ship to a belted cruiser. The design submitted was for a vessel with a 6 in armour belt, 7 ft wide and 330 ft long: six extra 6 in guns were to be added and the ship was to be lengthened by 28ft. This modified design was ordered, but Armstrong's strongly advised that the ship be completed as originally contemplated, and that Chile should in addition order a second vessel, an armour-clad of 7000 tons which could be delivered in 15 months...

As we know, the Chilean Navy ordered O'Higgins some time later anyways, but what would've happened if they had proceeded as Armstrongs suggested immediately?
I'm assuming here that "armour-clad" would mean an Armoured Cruiser, and that the design would've grown like every design seems to do, up to 9000 tons in this case.

Here's an armoured cruiser based off of Esmeralda IV, a sort of cousin ship if you will. It's armed with four 8"/45 and fourteen 6"/45 guns and has a belt 7" thick around the vitals.
I would expect such a ship to do 22 knots with 18,000 hp and 23.5 knots with forced draft.

If Covadonga II would've been ordered, then Esmeralda IV could've been completed as a protected cruiser instead, with no belt and less draft, maybe she could've looked like this. I didn't bother shortening her though :p

Now, as 1898 dawned, the US government attempted to buy foreign warships recently completed and soon to be so, as we know successfully acquiring Albany and New Orleans, but they also requested to purchase O'Higgins. In this case, I've drawn a hypothetical purchase of Covadonga, not like it would've made a difference either in Santiago or Manila.

reytuerto would be right, the gunhouses are singles and the other 8" guns are on the fore casemates.
Low casemates aren't a very "Elswick" thing but they're not unheard of, you can spot them in O'Higgins and Asama classes, for my part, I kind of ran out of space for more 6" guns without resorting to the deck mounts on the superstructure Esmeralda IV had.

Good evening. Hi, guys; well, this is my candidate:
Obviusly based in the excellent drawing (by garlicdesign) of the protected cruiser Hashidate. As the rate of fire of the Canet gun was painfully slow, the main gun is the well tried BL 10 inch, capable of being loaded in any position (and this is the reason for a rather bulky turret for a single gun). The secondary artillery was 4 QF 6 inch in hull casemates, complemented by 9 QF 12 pounder guns in the hull as an anti-torpedo boat guns. Last but not least, 4 tubes for Whitehead 450 mm torpedoes (over the floatation line), 2 fore, 2 aft.
As the armor was made by Krupp cemented steel plates, the thick was much less than the Harvey steel plates. So a vertical armour was provided, complemented with some horizontal armour.
2 tertiary reciprocating steam engines and 12 boilers of the water tube type (Yarrow), and the lengthening of the fore hull for reducing the water resistance, puts the speed around 18 kts. As the interest and potential foes of my AU country are inside an enclosed sea (Mediterranean), the range is less important than protection and armament.
I will be very pleased with all the comments that can be used to improve this drawing, and its feasibility as a design. Cheers.

PS: This is a WIP drawing. I will try to mimic the fantastics shadowing given by Garlicdesign in all his vintage vessels.

PS2 (after waritem post): I enjoy a lot looking the divergent approaches for a rather similar hull , is very intresting!

Last edited by reytuerto on June 26th, 2017, 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This challenge give me an opportunity to post two ships i've designed for my alternate ottoman navy.
They are based on two neverbuilt otl ships. As i didn't find any pictures or blueprint, drawings are totally speculative except for the dimensions and the weaponry (real position unknown).

First the smallest one, protected cruiser Sadiye from the Feyza-i_Bahri class, sometimes discribed as an unprotected cruiser (so maybe considered a deviation....).
A link to wiki page (in italian) :https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classe_Feyza-i_Bahri
Then the "biggest", protected cruiser Hüdâvendigâr from the same class. On this one i didn't choose the more probable configuration with both heavy guns side by side in single mounts at the front. My first attempt was a more conventional scaled version of the SMS Kaiser Franz Joseph I.
A link to wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCd% ... ss_cruiser

As you can see those ships are also based on Garlic exellent drawings...............
Both have been laid down but never completed.

_________________"You can rape history, if you give her a child"
Alexandre Dumas

Amazing contributions, and two of them look like Hashidate!
@reytuerto, I think it's a brilliant idea to use the 10 inch gun. With it's higher rate of fire, it might be able to equal the older Elswick cruisers carrying 10 inch guns, like Esmeralda III, Giovanni Bausan and Naniwa.
Since it's a WIP, may I suggest you add a boom to receive boats and some coaling hatches?

@waritem, Feyza-i Bahri is both pretty and very convincing, I'm glad you posted her.Hüdâvendigâr of course looks a lot like the distinctive Matsushimas, but I find her to be very well executed and since she was to be built at an Ottoman yard, what she would've looked like is up to all bets!
The twin 8.3" guns would've likely given her a very serious punch for her size too. The only real gripe I found is that the article says she would've had just 1 shaft, but that would've been odd, wouldn't have it?